About the drawings, yes I am sure since we have them. Hopewfully I don't have to write that 3 times so Kutscha sees it. Our aircraft was originally an F4U-1, converted to F4U-1A, and subsequently converted to F4U-1D. The F4U-1 had the birdcage canopy. Going to a blown, 3-piece canopy made it an F4U-1A, and going from the 3-piece to the 1-piece made it an F4U-1D, at which time the wood radio mast was also removed. The drawings are at the museum.

And you can call them anything you want as an enthusiast. As long as you can communicate with someone else who understands, you don;t have a problem. And if you're never looking for parts, nobody will ever care. If you ARE looking for parts or drawings, using the correct designation makes it a lot easier to find things. So, if you're not restoring it doesn't make much of a difference.

I don't care at all, but when someone starts arguing about designations and nicknames, they get trumped by the dataplate. Occasionally, the contract number is on the dataplate, especially from the 1930s. That's how it is on the Seversky AT-12. If you call it a 2-seat P-35, many airplane nuts will know what you are talking about. But you won't find the drawings that way. Anf if you don't need the drawings, then "2-seat P-35" describes it quite adequately.

Since apparently nobody is looking for parts or drawings, then it's sort of unimportant in the end, isn't it? I think it started with correcting people for using US nicknames ... but everyone does it.

It doesn't matter where you see one, a Spitfire will generally still be called a Spitfire by pretty much everyone, and a P-40 will generally be called a P-40, especially by people from the country where it was designed and built.

If you DO want to be technically correct, though, at least you know where to look for the designation. That's good enough. In here you could call it almost anything that was associated with the airframe anywhere and most would be able to "get it." So if someone says early P-40, P-40B, Tomahawk, or inline Curtiss Hawk, most of you would be at least close in your mind.

Thanks for posting that. It could be a replica dataplate since there is no date stamped and no plate number, but stranger things happen in wartime, so it could also be real. I have the Bu. Nos. for Corsairs, but not the mfg. nos.. The F4U-4s were made in 1944 / 1945. The company designation was a Model V-166B, but that was the company designation for all Corsairs, for some reason. The first batch were Bu. No. 62915 - 63071. Second batch were Bu. No, 80764 - 82177. The last batch were Bu. No. 96752 - 97531.

The company was founded in 1917 by Chance Milton Vought, along with Birdseye B. Lewis and became the Lewis and Vought Corporation. It then became Chance Vought Aircraft, followed by Vought-Sikorsky, followed by LTV Aerosapce (part of Ling-Temco-Vought), Vought Aircraft Companies, and is now Vought Aircraft Industries.

When the drawings for the F4U-1 were made, it was probably Chance-Vought Aircraft and the drawings were updated to Vought-Sikorsky. Even today, the Corsair drawing numbers almost all start with "VS."

Sort of useless information unless you want the drawings. But ... if you DO, you can get them through Vought Aircraft Industries.

According to the Flying Tigers, they started with 100 aircraft, of which 99 made it all the way through assembly. One crate was dropped in the sea and a wing was lost to salt water intrusion. That fuselage was later completed with parts from crashed P-40s. They lost aircraft gradually and got the odd spare along the way, until they got 50 P-40E's somehwere toward the end of their tour. The original planes didn't get gunsights (and other GFE) and that was always an issue.

On 4 Jul 1942, they were disbanded and replaced by the 23rd Fighter Group of the USAAF, whcih was later absorbed by the U. S. 14th AF, commanded by General Chenault. The 23rd used the leftover P-40s, including the E models, retained the nose art, and was more than half P-40Es when the 23rd took over.